Having trouble playing something on this website? Try a new approach!
We asked one of our favorite bassoon players, Emily Matter, for some practice tips. She started playing bassoon in the ninth grade, and reached such a high level of success that she was chosen to perform with the Air Force Band of the West. That is a very competitive position! She gave us some insight into how she achieves these feats. Emily is also an avid rock climber, and applies the same disciplined approach to everything she does. Emily says, “Practicing is a big part of playing any instrument and knowing how to practice will help you make more progress and make it more fun! Practicing is a great skill and it applies to not only playing an instrument but to almost anything in life!
The first thing to remember is that a little practice every day is better than a lot of practice sometimes. The next tip is to have a goal for your practice - don't just run through everything and call it good. Pick a piece or a lick you have a hard time with. Or maybe you want to work on endurance with long tones, rhythm, or intonation. Have a goal so when you look back on your practice session (I recommend keeping a practice journal) you can see if you accomplished your goal.
I have been taught to make SMART goals. They should be Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time bound. For example, I want to practice measure 22-23 (specific) of X piece we are playing for band (relevant). I want to be able to play it at quarter note = 120 (pick a tempo that is achievable, and since it is a tempo, it is measurable or trackable), and I want to be able to do it by next rehearsal (time bound).
So now it is time to work on that goal. If I have a technical passage that I need to work on and get up to a specific tempo I like to break it into small chunks (4-9 notes) and get creative in the ways I can change the passage. Change rhythm, add slurs, and change the way you group the notes in your brain. Then increase the tempo slightly and do it all again! You'd be surprised how time flies when you're challenging your brain.
Another way to practice overall technique is to pick an easy passage and focus on different things each time you play it. 1st time, think about your breathing. 2nd time your embouchure. 3rd time think about keeping your fingers close to the tone holes. 4th, your posture. 5th, your air flow. 6th, your pitch. 7th, be really picky about your rhythm. 8th, concentrate on your tonguing. 9th, dynamics and musical line. 10th, put it all together. After this you just worked on 9 different aspects of your playing and played the passage 10 times!”